Let’s go to “Bethlehem”
New Years Day is observed by a number of traditions as the feast of The Holy Name of “Jesus.” That’s not the Messiah’s name, but that’s not what I am concerned about today. Don’t get me wrong, His name is really important (it’s Joshua); but it’s something else in the reading for today that’s got me thinking about the Bible today. Let’s talk about Bethlehem.
Once known as Ephrath, Bethlehem appears several times in the Hebrew Bible; Rachel was buried on the road to Bethlehem (Gen. 35:19), as was Ibzan, the 7th Judge of Israel (Jdg 12:8, 10). Bethlehem also features prominently in the Benjamite War as the home of the concubine taken by a Levite. Bethlehem is also the northern most city within the tribal allotment of Judah, whose “royal reputation is awash with religion with violence. It’s right there in the name, bêṯ leḥem, which can be translated as “family of war.”
The first part, bayiṯ (B-Y-T), can mean house, clan, or family. The second part is another whole word, one used quite sparingly considering the reputation given the Hebrew Bible by early Christians who saw it as too violent for their taste. Most concordances record leḥem (L-H-M) here as bread or food, but that is one of a few equally appropriate interpretations. The root verb of L-H-M means to devour, too much of which is destructive; to be politically hawkish is to imply one is also overfed. Another rendition is war, as in lāḥēm (L-H-M); in other words Bethlehem can mean both “well fed house” and “combative clan.”
How can this be? Until the 9th century Hebrew scribes only recorded consonants, leaving vowels open to interpretation. Hebrew was a kind of bridge between (“illiterate”) oral societies and (“literate”) scribal societies. Joshua, the Messiah, would have seen the city of his birth written as BYTLHM; how it rolled off his tongue would have been left to His own discretion.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, produced in the same period when Joshua was alive, only record consonants. The Masoretes of the Medieval period were the first scribes to include vowels in the texts they produced, cementing future interpretation in their own image. Whether that’s good or bad is a matter of debate, but the fact remains that reading scripture assumed a higher level of interpretative freedom before their version.
Bethlehem can mean both “well fed house” and “combative clan.”
It is hard to overstate the importance of language; it is the thing that conveys meaning between speaker and hearer, past and present, God and humanity. There are some who prefer certainty and uniformity, an impulse I can definitely understand with my military background. That impulse can become toxic if it shuts down conversation, as though there is only one legitimate interpretation of YHWH’s Word.
We should never stop asking the proverbial child-like question, WHY? As in “Why did the Masoretes choose one series of vowels over another?” But also, “What makes their interpretation more or less valid than others?” To control language is to control meaning, the moral architecture of the universe. We don’t even get to decide if we are “Christian.” If we love as Christ loved, only then people will recognize Him in us.
The conclusion from today’s reading from Luke reminds us to get the Messiah’s name right;
When the eighth day came, it was time to circumcise the child, and he was called Joshua, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
When His name forcibly conjures imagery of our own colonialism, it’s harder to pretend Christ was anything less than a military commander. That’s kinda the point, to not look away from who we are lest we become the petty, violent gods that really command our imagination.
